Lit After the NJO ended, where did you expect the EU to go?

Bold for emphasis is mine.

Methinks a re-read is in order.

 

Is it fair for me to say that Anakin believes that might makes right, now?

Or that he was turning to the dark side in the NJO?

 

Anakin does, in Edge of Victory: Conquest, when trying to explain The Force to Vua Rapunng, say, basically "both the light and the dark side are necessary" at least.

 

How old is Jacen here?

 

Jacen is 16 in Vector Prime.

I never thought of this before now, but with the same sort of logic and standard of proof that people use against Jacen, I think I could make a pretty compelling argument that Anakin was turning to the dark side.

 

Sixteen.

Most authors are terrible when it comes to writing in children's/youth's voices. Very few understand that kids don't talk like that.

EDIT: Ninja'd. Commando'd. Fett'd.

 

I thought that whatever its other flaws- The Crystal Star at least captured "young children's speech" fairly well.

 

16 eh, that explains something; both he and Anakin is in the know-it-all age

 

One of its few redeeming features.

 

Personally I also like the Codru-Ji and YJK made Lusa a smaller favourite of mine. DAMN you Star by Star for killing her! CURSE YOU!

 

Edited: To be fair, Salvatore didn't exactly write anyone in a true-to-character-voice in Vector Prime. IMO

 

I saw that!

To be fair, they brought Salvatore on board for the name recognition. Poor bastard knew next to nothing about anything EU-related. VP also predates Chee's database, if I'm not mistaken; there was little in the way of resources to help bring'm along.

EDIT: This in no way excuses his voices for the Big Three.

 

*Obstinate scowl*

Never.

 

Yeah, sorry about that. Kneejerk response. Thought twice about it.


But when you don't read the books that precede yours...or to even ask where the characters were left off... Stackpole, who was writing UNION at the time and therefore the last appearance of the characters prior to his book, should have been easily accessible - at least through Del Rey, as Stackpole's books directly followed VP. And then there was this not-so-newfangled invention called the internet. But silly me thinks that research and attention to continuity are a vital part of the author's job description, be it a tie-in book or an original novel.

Vector Prime is a large portion of the reason why I despised the NJO at the time, and still do, apparently It's been 14 years. I really, really need to get over it.

But the hubris...ye gods. I'm still amazed ANYONE thought Vector Prime was well written enough to be printed, much less be the kick-off book for a five-year extended series. It's not just the OOC, it's the telling instead of showing, the headhopping, the nonsensical plot elements such as Mara's disease - why, if Anor's lizard can detect the spores on her breath, isn't she infecting everyone she breathes or sneezes on?!?! - the lack of any science in his attempts at SF, the heavy handed villains, etc.

Plus we have Salvatore to thank for suggesting that his good buddy Troy should be allowed to play in the EU.

 

SALVATORE!

 

i enjoyed Anakin and Jacen's differing philosophies. It made things interesting, and we had never seen the philosophy of the force ever discussed like this ever before. Anakin later in the series was able to control his anger, and stay in the light. Such wasted potential.

 

Salvatore was masterful in his true to character portrayals of the big tree in my opinion

 

No offence, but the amount of condescension in posts over the last two pages its quite literally staggering. The implications made about those having the opinions that Vergere was a dark sider and Jacen falling being wrong through ignorance is both insulting and misaimed both.

First point, for those who don't understand, that's the writers mistake - a course in both philosophy and eastern religious studies is not generally required reading to understand a plot point in a Star Wars novel, and if it is, the groundwork for understanding should be laid by the author in universe, so the thread can be followed anyway. While having subtle undercurrents and interesting philosophical moments, Star Wars is a space opera/fantasy, and not a intermediate university course in higher thinking.

I studied Taoism and eastern religions myself in my late teens, and have since become a born again Christian, so I understand both sides myself... and though Vergere speaks well and makes some interesting points, in the end I still believe she had darker intents all along, or was corrupted herself. That's not to say she was completely wrong in her understanding of the force... but then, neither was Palpatine when he spoke to people a lot of the time. He just veiled the poison in honey and truths and half-truths. While the concept of the force is more east than west, the influence of temptation and the slippery slope and pride are very much keeping in theme of Star Wars also. Vergere stroked Jacen's ago a great deal, after torturing him terribly. There were plenty of us at the time had alarm bells sound at the time of the books release, its just most of us either left, made peace with it, or felt vindicated when Dark Nest showed that he was starting to fall. It didn't come as a suprise, some of us were actively waiting for it. Its even noted in the unused prophecy plot that both he and Jaina would still have fallen, so alas, it seems that his fall potentially wasn't a retcon at all.

Remember, its during this tiemframe we got a lot more 'Grey' Jedi minsets, and Star Wars has never had that as a theme. You either stand firmly in the light, or you fall. There has never really been an exception outside the video games, and even Kyle Katarn (the biggest example, if only due to game mechanics) fell in the JK Expansion.

Kreia reminds me of her a great deal. Kreia, too, taught the Exile a lot of valuable lessons that were of themselves not dark, but could very easily lead to a fall. As she put it, a fall is such a quiet thing.

To put it another way, I think some readers are blinded by a certain sense of intellectual pride, that they understand and others simply do not, and they are so focused on this that they miss the fact that this character has some very, very dark character traits, and despite being wise and a good speaker, had quietly fallen herself, if she was not an outright Sith. The hints were there, as was the tone to some of her speeches and interactions with others.

I think it has to be down to differing perceptions, as opposed to simply the understanding, and the plebes.

 

I ask again, what was the point of Traitor in the arc of the NJO if Vergere was a Sith and Jacen was being groomed as a Sith apprentice? I don't understand how people could have come to those conclusions unless they took everything Vergere said at face value. I am quite certain the point of Traitor was for Vergere to provide Jacen with the guidance he needed in order to complete his hero's journey, similar to the relationship between Yoda and Luke in the OT.

 

There is Revan- but while he might have been able to use both the light and dark side simultaneously once he gets his memory back in the Revan novel, in the The Old Republic game:

Spoiler

he seems to eventually Fall again.

Maybe to show that Sith (or possibly very Gray Jedi in Vergere's case- it's a bit ambiguous) can be insightful- and even self-sacrificing.

 

In TUF, Luke says that while not fallen, she had kind of lost perspective, and why there´s indeed a dark side. I think Vergere did believe what she taught Jacen, but I´m not going to put her opinion above Yoda´s, who had an advisor on the Force instead. Then Denning decided to completely ignore it and had Jedi using DS powers in DNT.

Thinking about it, I wonder if Nelani´s final words were just towards Jacen or towards the readers too.

And yep, it looks I should reread NJO, but my "to read list" now is HUGE.

 

I would say it is condescension to say an author is wrong and the reader is right, but hey, then LOTF happened.

Though in this case readers are telling the author his book wasn't saying what he meant for it to say.

 

Then he didn´t make his point clear enough, and that´s not the reader´s fault.

 

His point is that there are no clear points. The novel is intentionally ambiguous, and readers couldn't handle that so they had to nail Vergere down to something, and calling her a Sith was the easiest thing.

 

I'm not telling him that he isn't saying what he intended to say. I'm saying its arrogant to assume that you and others know his exact mind, and your interpretations of a certain character, are the correct ones and anyone who believes otherwise doesn't understand.

I wouldn't have posted at all, as this doesn't seem to be an area where discussion would really be fruitful, the tone of the previous page simply rubbed me the wrong way. So i'll go back to quietly holding my opinion, and leave you to yours.